Crisis Actors & School Shootings

When the survivors of the Parkland school shooting became outspoken against gun violence, conspiracy theorists (and possibly Russians) launched the theory that they were crisis actors. In this context, a crisis actor is someone who pretends to be a victim of a crisis and does so in service to some secret power (such as the government, the liberal elites, or the Democrats). The crisis actor is, by their appeals to pity, supposed to help advance the secret agenda of their secret masters, such as destroying the Second Amendment and taking guns.

As with the false flags discussed in the previous essay, the claim that there are crisis actors presents an epistemic problem: how does one know if the person is a real survivor or an actor in service to a secret force? There is also the possibility that a person is a real survivor yet has been recruited to serve the secret force—but that is another matter.

When sorting out the matter of crisis actors, the same methodology used to address false flags should be applied: when writing about miracles, Hume contends that the certainty one places on the truth of any matter of fact should be proportional to the strength of the evidence. As such, the key question is where the weight of the evidence lies: for or against crisis actors. Naturally, each case needs to be considered on its own, but a general consideration is obviously possible.

When people allege that someone is a crisis actor, the usual evidence offered is photographic: the alleged crisis actor has appeared at the scene of multiple crises. As a method, this is certainly credible: if it can be shown that the same people keep appearing in widespread crises, then it would be quite reasonable to be suspicious of their involvement. However, the first step is to establish that the people are, in fact, the same people. Conspiracy theorists will usually find photographs that seem to support their claim: what appear to be photos of the same person at different crises. However, the photos tend to be relatively low-quality pictures of people with faces distorted by emotion and similar hairstyles. As such, the people in the images can look alike without being the same person. There is also the fact that resemblances between people are not uncommon, especially when the images are of people in the same age range. Snopes has done an analysis of one such case, nicely debunking the claim that the same woman is in all the photos. In the case of the Parkland students, it was claimed that David Hogg was a crisis actor because he appeared on the news in California. The conspiracy theory is that Hogg was pretending to be a high school student in California and is now pretending to be a Florida high school student. The problem with this narrative is that a person can, obviously enough, travel and be filmed or photographed in those places. Hogg really was in California, but not pretending to be a student. There are no doubt photos of most people in different places; this hardly proves they are pretenders—it merely shows they have probably been different places.

While investigating individual claims are important, it is also possible to due a general assessment of the likelihood of crisis actors. To use the example of David Hogg, he would have needed to establish a fake identity at Parkland. This would require that the other students, the teachers, the people in the community who allegedly knew him, and so on would all need to be active participants in the conspiracy. After all, if he was an actor, his cover would easily be pierced by a little investigation in the area—unless, of course, everyone was in on the conspiracy. Applying Hume’s principle, the issue is whether it is more likely that Hogg is a real student who survived a real shooting or that he is an actor and the entire town is in on the conspiracy. The simpler and more plausible explanation is, obviously enough, that David Hogg is a real student. The same sort of reasoning can be applied to other cases involving alleged crisis actors.

Yes, I would agree that the students are getting support from the left. That is uncontroversial. But, the obvious reply is “so what?” After all, anyone who engages in politics on the right or the left who gets national attention automatically becomes a “target” of the Left and the Right. For example, the Tea Party was targeted by the Republicans, but I would not call them “Tax Actors” or attack them for having views that attracted the usual suspects to try to assimilate them.

The students can be aided by the Democrats and yet retain their agency. I think it would be a disservice to cast them as mere dupes or dismiss their concerns about guns just because the left is trying to use them.

I think it’s difficult for you to understand my point of view because you truly believe that guns are a major cause of violence. I have said many times that I’m not a gun owner, nor do I really have a dog in this race regarding guns, gun control, or any aspect of the issue (except that I think that as a matter of policy or procedure there ought to be a constitutional convention called to deal with the issue).

So let me see if I can make an analogy that will help you to understand.

Back in 1986, Ed Koch, the mayor of New York, urged President Reagan to eliminate the $100 bill to aid in the fight against drug trafficking. The concept was that since drugs are paid for with cash, having only 50’s or 20’s would make large transactions extremely difficult.

So this idea never went anywhere – but imagine if it gained the kind of popularity that the gun control issue has.

Perhaps this issue could be made more politically charged if those in favor of eliminating the bill were interested in eliminating cash altogether – it would certainly make taxation and transaction-tracking a whole lot easier – and would increase the amount of control and oversight the government has on us. Let’s throw that in as a secondary objective of the anti-100 people – they believe in big government and would like to see some kind of government credit bureau. Of course, this bureau would collect all kinds of information on people so they would know how much credit to extend and in what ways to various people. Cynics like myself would, of course, see a lot of harm in this – but that’s a different discussion.

But imagine further that the main stated focus of this issue was the idea that by eliminating cash, it would make drug abuse go away – or at least it would reduce it by a significant amount.

It’s really pretty absurd – drug use and drug trafficking aren’t caused by cash, nor are they really enabled by it – without the $100 bill traffickers would find another way to transact business – (especially today, with blockchain technology and crypto-currency) but imagine there were a lobby that was as passionate about this as the gun-control lobby. Imagine that every time there was an overdose, they came out of the woodwork to protest cash.

So if a large group of students got together to protest drug use and drug abuse at their schools, perhaps triggered by some mass overdose of bad heroin or something like that, there would be a whole host of reasons that they could focus on; family life, demographics, racism, poverty, depression, education – but imagine if the anti- $100 bill people decided to “help” them, and turn their rally into a protest for their own political cause. Websites and slogans would be provided for the students – they would be given information and advice as to how to proceed and what to say, to make their protest more meaningful. The problem is, that the protest would not be about drug abuse and dealing with that problem – it would be about the $100 bill and our “love affair” with cash.

Rational people would see that the currency and the drugs are very disconnected, and that even if the bills were eliminated it would have little to no effect on the problem – and that it would further distract us from dealing with the real issue.

That is the way that I see this current event. I sincerely believe that guns are not the cause of this violence – there have been enough bombings and other attacks on people and events to show that the truly motivated will find other means. I also believe that the politics of this issue go beyond any belief to the contrary – that there is a deeper issue having to do with the reach and purpose of our government. To turn this into an anti-gun issue, to me, is simply absurd and irrational – like the $100 bill example. It is distracting us from dealing with the real issues, which is tragic.

Thus, I believe that the students are not being “helped”, they are being “exploited”. Rather than the students being helped and guided to explore the deeper aspects and causes of school violence, they are being told it is about guns.

I think it’s difficult for you to understand my point of view because you truly believe that guns are a major cause of violence.

Sigh…DH, it truly pains me to watch y’all struggle. It is difficult for Mike to understand your point of view because, like damn near every argument he makes here, he has no genuine desire to see your point of view.

I don’t say these things to be mean. It’s just after 10 years of this silliness, benefit of the doubt given time and time again, only to see the clown nose come out when convenient or silly plays on words or such, I know the animal. I’ve seen it many times in many places. I can even appreciate it in it’s proper context. Philosophy, specifically philosophy bought and paid for by taxpayers, especially as those payments continues to rise doing much collateral damage, is not the place.

No need for your pain. I understand it, but I’m not posting with any real belief that I’m going to change anyone’s point of view. Truth is, I like having this kind of discourse, reading others’ points of view, and sparring a little bit. My eyes are wide open; I’m not struggling.

I think that guns are obviously a factor in gun violence, rather like drugs are a factor in drug crimes. But, I do not think that guns cause people to be violent. They merely make it much easier to be violent. I do think that the ease of gun violence is a causal factor: someone who would not go on a stabbing spree might go on a shooting spree. There is also the obvious fact that guns make it much easier to engage in mass violence. That said, I think the causal influence of guns on the mind is a small factor.

Thanks for clarifying. I did know that you have a somewhat different view of firearms than the mainstream left, given your upbringing. Whether they make it easier to engage in mass violence or to be violent in the first place is difficult to say – it may seem so now, but we really don’t know what people would do without them.

I am of the belief that nothing would really change – it’s still possible to get everything you need to make bombs on the internet or at a garden center.

If we did take that approach – that guns make these things easier – the clear place to start would be with suicides – that’s the one aspect of “gun violence” that has increased over the last 20 years or so, despite the attention given to the rather low (relatively speaking) incidence of mass shootings.

There are plenty of studies that indicate that there is a higher rate of suicide among LBGTQ popluations and among autistic individuals – the latter because of the correlation between autism and increased pain sensitivity and nerve disorders. Given those statistics – I wonder what the social backlash would be if these two populations were identified as primary targets of restricted firearm access?

The one thing I do know for sure is that by having a classification called “Gun Violence”, it distracts us from what i see to be deeper, more relevant causes of violence in the first place – which is very problematic for me. But I’ve been over this and over this, no sense rehashing it now.

“guns are obviously a factor in gun violence, rather like drugs are a factor in drug crimes.

That says it all.

Drugs are not a “factor” in drug crimes. They ARE the crime. They are the motive, the goal, the objective, the need, the desire. If someone needs or wants drugs for their own use or for their dealing operations at any level, they will do what is necessary to achieve their ends – they will use a gun, a knife, a bomb, a hammer. They will use extortion or threats, they will use coercive or retaliatory means in whatever way they can to accomplish their ends.

Guns may be a factor in drug crimes, but they are not the crime. Guns may be a factor in suicide, in domestic violence, in gang warfare, in hate crimes – but they are not the crime. They are a means to an end.

You can argue the “convenience” angle as much as you want – but if someone wants drugs they will get them. If someone wants to kill themselves or their spouse, they will find a way to do it. Gangs throughout history have routinely had at each other with bats, clubs, knives, fists – whatever they could get their hands on.

So the problem is semantic – and the way in which we use words often defines the way in which we see & describe the world. If we call all crimes that use guns “Gun Crimes”, we are solving nothing. And THAT is the problem. Somehow, a huge number of people in this country perceive guns as the source of our problems and are focusing their time and energy on gun control, gun registration, age limits, stronger background checks, ammunition limits, modification restrictions – as though this will somehow stop mass killings, suicides, domestic violence, gang violence, drug wars.

There is no such thing as “gun violence”. There is “violence” of every stripe, and some of that violence is aided by the use of a gun. Until we realize that, we will continue to kill and maim ourselves and each other.

I’m not talking about drug users – I’m talking about drug crimes. You were the one who first made the comparison – between gun crimes and drug crimes.

I agree with you – that it is a tautology that the mere possession of illegal drugs is illegal (kind of like being in this country illegally, right?) but in this instance I’m referring specifically to larger drug crimes – dealing, smuggling, pushing … and I’m referring to that smaller subset of people who do resort to other crimes to get or deal drugs.

For example – if there is a meth lab operating in a city with a network of dealers raking in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and things go south and end up in some kind of shootout – is that a drug crime or a gun crime?

I would argue that from top to bottom, this is a series of drug crimes. Take the guns away and the manufacturers and dealers will resort to other weapons to ply their trade. When drugs come across the border into this country that is a drug crime – if they exchange fire with border agents, it is not a gun crime. Guns are a means to an end to protect the illegal trade.

“You are right to point out that suicides are the main causes of deaths involving firearms. In that regard, they are also like drugs: the majority of the harm is self-inflicted.”

Again, not really my point. There are all kinds of articles talking about gun ownership in this country, and identifying “white males” as the majority of owners. The Atlantic had an article linking gun ownership with “white privilege”. There are articles in Scientific American, the Washington Post – it’s a very common meme.

But the real problem isn’t ownership, is it? It’s use. Who uses these guns? Who are the victims?

My point is that it’s politically OK, if not downright “correct” to target white males and white privilege in the crusade against guns, but that demographic tends to be the one that have NRA membership, that follow gun safety rules and get training – who own gun safes and, even if they own automatic assault rifles, tend not to use them against other humans.

It is politically incorrect to target other demographics – and if we really wanted to take guns out of the hands of those whose use of them results in human death, we would look to the statistics and target the LBGTQ community. Even so, I would argue that the problem is societal – bullying, isolation, homophobia, you name it – but the result is depression, low self esteem, and often suicide.

But – can you imagine if the government came out and said, “We are going to begin a campaign to remove guns from those populations where there is statistically the highest rate of violence and death”.

Cheers would ensue. But then …

“We have identified those populations as LBGTQ and those with Autism. We believe that by restricting ownership of guns among those populations, the rate of gun deaths in this country would be reduced by 40%”.

Statistics bear this out – but “political correctness” does not. Better to divert attention away from where the real problems are, and focus on white males.

Please don’t get me wrong – I am not homophobic – nor do I believe AT ALL that guns are the problem. I am merely calling out the hypocrisy of political correctness and the current anti-gun lobbies. It is politically incorrect to focus their energy on the areas where the problem is statistically highest.

I have to admit – although I think of myself as being reasonably well informed on current events, this one passed me by. I Googled “Crisis Actors” and found the whole story on NBC and other sites. How could I have missed this?

Well, it’s not really any wonder. What some people see as a right-wing problem, one put forth by NRA “Conspiracy Theorists” aimed at promoting some sinister agenda, I see as a larger issue – that of “People Will Believe Anything On Social Media”.

It’s really just another example of how we are hoodwinked by our own ignorance; if we choose to eagerly spread this kind of story on Facebook and Twitter – forwarding to all our friends without a single click on Snopes or FactCheck or even a more legitimate news source, well, we get what we deserve, I guess. One can hardly blame the originators of such nonsense – they’re really in the business of “click-bait”. (Reminds me of “The Parable Of The Snake” or “The Snake and the Farmer” – “I’m a snake – what did you expect?”).

It’s exactly the kind of story I routinely ignore.

On the other hand, there is a larger issue at hand, the surface of which you scratched in your post …

“There is also the possibility that a person is a real survivor yet has been recruited to serve the secret force—but that is another matter.” I might phrase that a little differently, but it’s not just another matter – it’s the matter. Like my point about “False Flags”, the original intent or sinister conspiracy is likely to be easily debunked or at least very difficult to prove, but the exploitation of the crisis by well-funded, organized political movements is as factual as it is disgraceful.

There is enough fake news to go around – from this exploitation being the brain-child of George Soros to the headlines about Donald Trump enabling the Crisis Actors – but there is also enough truth to be gleaned, and the burden is upon us.

Of course, there is the implicit debunking that Michael has attempted both here and in his “False Flag” essay. By focusing on the absurd, easily dismissed and preposterous aspects or examples of the situation, the easy conclusion is that the right is wrong – and if they are willing to do this, well, that puts it all into question, doesn’t it? Fodder for the Facebook crowd, and sadly, probably among the most effective.

Michael, you are entitled to your political beliefs, but I expect better of you. You make your living as a critical thinker, yet you are just as willing to exploit this nonsense as those far less educated or credentialed as you. You can counter with syllogism – “Just because I am pointing out one fallacy does not mean I am indicting all opposition” which is logically true – but as an experienced debater and one familiar with forensic strategies, I would contend that you know damn well what you are doing with this essay and with the “False Flag” essay. Your sin, your lie, is one of omission – and you know you have an audience willing to be convinced.

The truth is that there is now a national movement – the organization of which is far beyond the capabilities of a group of high school students. The seventeen-minute walkout is planned for today, and has been organized and funded by a group called “Women’s March Youth”. The level of organization and coordination is astounding – there is a lot of resource behind this. So where did this organization and funding come from? Bake sales? Pep rallies?

A glance at the Women’s March Youth homepage is very telling – there is a “partners” list on the home page that is essentially a roster of powerful anti-gun lobbyists in the US. “Center for American Progress Action Fund” (hmmm … there’s that Soros connection …). Progressive Turnout Project. National LBGTQ Task Force. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 well-funded local and national organizations listed.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste”

Here is the truly sad part of this. Violence in our cities and at our schools is a big problem – but it’s not guns. We have been over this and over this – domestic violence and murder are higher in African American families than in others – and plenty of peer-reviewed studies and scholarly research have shown that this is a racial issue – that abused African American women would rather keep the violence to the community, based on a racially motivated mistrust of “the system”. School violence has been rightly attributed to a whole host of mental health issues, including demographics, home life, drug abuse, and bullying. These mental health issues are ignored, unreported, or kept internal, just like what happened in Parkland. Massacres like the one in Las Vegas and in Texas, and at the Boston Marathon are politically motivated, often acts of terrorism. Guns may be a common thread, a common attribute, but they are not a common cause.

By calling all this by the same name and attributing the same cause to all of the incidents is to take the focus off of the real issues, and turning it into a political battle that will fund and empower a political entity, but will do little or nothing to actually solve the problem.

The children who are walking out on their classes today are being exploited in the worst kind of way. They are passionate, they are hurt, they are motivated to act – their hearts are in the right place, but they are innocent and confused. It is up to us, the adults of the community, the teachers, the staff – to teach them to think critically – to not accept the first answer, the most popular answer, the answer that appears most often in their Facebook feed – but we do not. We tell them the opposite – that the right answer is our answer (well, not mine), because it is our political position and their voices will give power to ours.

So tens of thousands of innocent schoolchildren will walk out of their classes today to protest guns, and all 75 of the “partners” of Women’s March Youth” will gain power in some way. Politicians will be motivated to act – those who do not stand to lose their jobs.

The students of Stoneman Douglas High School really should be out there protesting, and protesting strongly – but their protests ought to be focused on why Nikolas Cruz was able to be where he was when he was – how all of the warning signs could have been missed – why the state and community supported the school’s dangerous policy that students who threaten and attack other students to the degree that Cruz did should not be reported to the police. Student should be protesting poverty, racism, gang membership, and most of all, the lack of any kind of critical thinking that would get us as a nation of individual communities closer to actually solving the problem at hand instead of feeding a political agenda.

This walkout will be successful. People will listen to the passion of the students, it will gain national attention and the children will feel as though they participated. Very few will tell them how they have been exploited – and when they are told, they won’t believe it. There is no rational argument against passion. When a distraught student displays his or her anger and emotion to the world, there is no organization, no party, no group, no individual who can tell them what I am saying here – it is tantamount to denying their pain and declaring oneself to be a “gun-loving child murderer”.

So we’ll have stricter gun laws. Makes no practical difference to me – I’m not a gun owner and they just aren’t part of my life. But in a larger sense, it’s one more nail in the coffin of intelligent thought and analysis, and one more step toward mob rule.

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. I think it’s a matter of people wanting to be fooled, and people fooling each other. You can find all sorts of points of view on the Internet – from the wildest conspiracies about aliens or zombies or even Democrats – to stories that are completely true. Whether or not these stories get attention is not that they are over-promoted at the source, it’s that they are repeated and re-posted and tagged and forwarded.

I’m going to walk back a little of the harshness of my previous post. I just re-read your essay and you do seem to put some effort towards trying to discern whether or not that which is called a “False Flag” or a “Crisis Actor” actually is such. To that end, and within the context of my plea for “Critical Thinking”, that part of your post is on point. It is definitely incumbent upon us, the news-consuming public, to be able to sort out truth from fiction, and you make a pretty good point.

On the other hand, to some of us these “False Flag” or “Crisis Actor” claims are pretty meaningless from the start. I am all too aware of the tactics of both the left and the right to exploit the ignorance of the public and the power of social media – but in my view there isn’t really much of any value in going down that road.

I also stand by my point that by devoting two entire posts to the most absurd examples, and both of them coming from what you claim to be the “right”, you are painting just as false a picture, and aligning yourself with the problem rather than the solution.

Unfortunately, a meaningful number of people believe in False Flag and Crisis Actor theories. Even folks who dismiss them are influenced by the ideas of conspiracy. They might not think that the shootings are wholesale frauds, but they might embrace the idea that someone is behind something and that someone is after our guns. As such, the subjects are worth writing about.

It’s your blog, you can write about whatever you want. And you can not write about anything you want as well. The choice you made in both cases individually and taken as a whole, amount to a “Reductio Ad Absurdum” argument.

In the fever swamps and extremist fringes of the internet, the outspoken student survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are depicted as mouthpieces of the FBI, pawns of left-wing activist billionaire George Soros, stooges of the Democratic Party — or all of the above.

Question for Mike. Who is more gullible, those who believe the kids acted all on their own, or those who believe they had help from the professional Left?

It is one thing to claim that the teens were aided by the left, quite another to claim that they are mere crisis actors. The gun control folks are, obviously, eager to ally (or exploit) these teens. But, this does not prove that the teens are not sincere and are mere tools of the left. If the left was that capable, we’d be complaining about how corrupt President Clinton is and not enduring the chaos of the Trump administration.

And don’t forget that in between “aided” and “crisis actors” comes “exploited”.

I believe that the teens are in pain, that they are entirely sincere, they are passionate and acting on their own – or at least started out to. In my longer post I said that it is the responsibility of the adults in the room to teach them to think critically.

Amid all the interviews and media attention, has anyone asked a teenager if they are aware of the statistics surrounding gun violence? Has anyone asked a participant what their opinion was on any of the events involving Cruz that led up to his actions – his threats, his violent behavior, his Facebook posts, and the policies that prevented the school from calling the authorities regarding any of this?

Has anyone asked a participant what they think of the proposed laws, and how they believe they will help? Has anyone asked a participant how many school shootings, in their understanding, were perpetrated by people under 21, for example?

Perhaps the participants have thought about all of this, maybe they have informed answers to all of the questions – perhaps they have thought critically and considered alternatives, methodologies, causes and effects, and come to this conclusion rationally and intelligently.

Or maybe not. The point is that they don’t care – they see the grief and passion, they see the youth and they see opportunity and that’s all they need.

Democratic US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Broward County resident for nearly 30 years, told BuzzFeed News she has been in touch with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas since the day after the shooting, helping them connect to state legislators and plan their trip to Tallahassee last week.

From the NBC article Mike cited:

The speed with which these groundless claims spread…

DWS was in touch with the students the day after the shooting. The day after! And yet NBC (and Mike, by linking with approval) apparently believe it is “extremist” to believe the students are tools of the Dems.

Why think that they are mere tools of the Democrats? Are, for example, kids who like to shoot and back the NRA mere tools of the NRA? While kids are usually not as capable as their adult selves will be, it is unreasonable to think that they lack agency and are mere tools. Looking back to the distant past, I recall that I had political beliefs in my teen years and was even quite outspoken.

How so? I was politically active as high school student and in college as were many people I knew. When something happened that outraged my political values, I’d get all fired up and give futile speeches in class and in campus events. To me, it makes sense that kids today can do the same as I did.

Unfortunately, a meaningful number of people believe in False Flag and Crisis Actor theories. Even folks who dismiss them are influenced by the ideas of conspiracy. They might not think that the shootings are wholesale frauds, but they might embrace the idea that someone is behind something and that someone is after our guns. As such, the subjects are worth writing about.

Like DH, I am not interested in guns, but it is plainly true that the ultimate goal of the Left is to disarm the country.

For the gun-control side, the unspoken belief is that nothing short of all out confiscation will have an appreciable effect on decreasing gun deaths. Then again, it’s not that unspoken—gun-control advocates just prefer tergiversation to clarity. Democratic candidates, officeholders, and liberal websites frequently invoke the example of Australia, for example. After a 1996 shooting rampage killed 35 people, the Australian government outlawed an array of firearms and instituted a compulsory buyback program that effectively eliminated private gun ownership. Since then, gun violence has dropped precipitously.

Rarely in American gun-control advocates’ references to the Australian policy, however, do they acknowledge that the program amounted to confiscation. “When Australia had a mass killing—I think it was in Tasmania—about 25 years ago, it was just so shocking, the entire country said, ‘Well, we’re going to completely change our gun laws,’ and they did,” Obama said after a June shooting in a Charleston church killed nine people. Curiously, the president omitted just what “change” the people of Australia decided to implement.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told an audience in New Hampshire last month that “Australia is a good example” of gun-control laws, so much so that it “would be worth considering” the Antipodean solution here in the United States. She, too, neglected to mention the obligatory nature of the gun buyback scheme.

The following week, after having explicitly praised gun confiscation, however, she mocked the National Rifle Association for supposedly scaring its members into thinking that “they’re the only thing that’s going to stop the black helicopters from landing in the front yard and people’s guns being seized.

I certainly don’t advocate confiscation. I do admit my bias here: I grew up with guns in a hunting culture. No one I know has ever been hurt by a gun (well, other than that accident with a muzzle loading pistol during a re-enactment). I have nothing but positive experiences with guns. Naturally, I am aware that my experiences are different from others-I’m merely explaining the basis of my psychology of guns.

This comment is not specific to this post, but I wanted to draw your attention to an excellent essay in today’s Wall Street Journal. It deals with “Truth”, “Relativism” and “Postmodernism”, and provides a nice context and some historical and philosophical underpinnings to our idea of truth and the “post-truth” era. Much of the subject matter of this essay has been discussed in one form or another on this blog.